Tao Te Ching 27

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.
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When we realize that life can never be anything other than living in the present moment, then we realize that we have already arrived at the only destination available to us. Thinking we are anywhere other than here and now, or that we’re headed to anywhere other than here and now, is the illusion of a bad traveler.

Science is the pursuit of undiscovered truth. Anyone who believes that s/he already has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can never experience the joyful reward that comes from inquiry into the known in search of the undiscovered.

Following our intuition is nothing more than an act of trust. Intuition is to know something without the use of conscious reasoning, without the application of concepts. It is intuition that leads not just the artist but the scientist beyond the accepted conceptual understanding into an openness that produces the discovery of great art and great invention.

Tao Te Ching 26

The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement.

If you let yourself be blown to and fro, you lose touch with your root. If you let restlessness move you, you lose touch with who you are.
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Who doesn’t long for an abiding sense of stability, being fully grounded, knowing that we’re standing on rock rather than sand? The answer is, the person who stays connected with the root of life, who stays aware of who they are, who doesn’t allow themselves to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, dogma or partisan rhetoric.

So many of us are addicted to movement. We seem to believe that life can only be lived on the move, flitting about here and there, doing this or that. We want to “lift off” and “soar in the wind” and go “higher and farther” than humankind has gone before. We call it “exploration” and “stepping into the great beyond”.

We seem unaware that the wind on which we soar is simply the prevailing wind of the day. Today it blows strongly from the west; tomorrow it’s a slight breeze from the east; another day it’s a gale force from the north or a hot, dry dust storm from the south. The wind that prevails one day is non-existent another day.

Our attention is continually diverted to the rustling of our branches and leaves. We forget about our root system, about where we came from and who we are. Leaves fall and branches get pruned, but the trunk and the roots remain stable and unmoved.

We seem unable to realize that the rest we cherish is the opposite of the windblown restlessness we live amidst. The rest we cherish is found in an abiding awareness of who we are. The restlessness we live is found in the desire to be someone else, in the attempt to make life other than what it is.

We scarcely consider the value of being unmoved. The greatest courage is often, if not always, found in someone who “stands their ground” in the face of a prevailing onslaught. When a tornado or hurricane tears through a community we marvel at the structures that remain seemingly unmoved by the wind.

Perhaps it’s time to stop and stand our ground. Perhaps it’s time to rest.

Tao Te Ching 25

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born.

It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Essentially present.

It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. It flows through all things, inside and outside, and returns to the origin of all things.
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Most religions teach of a creative power, an infinite and unchanging source of life, an eternal ground of being that is omnipresent, inside and outside its creation. Most religions teach that the purpose of our life is to return to and remain united with that source of life.

Some religions teach that whether by divine design or human transgression we are separated from the origin of all things and that nothing other than divine intervention or human propitiation can bring the atonement (at-one-ment) through which we return and reunite with the perfection that existed before the universe was born.

Some religions teach that no such separation has occurred, indeed, that no such separation is possible. These belief systems teach that the omnipresent is just that – essentially present here and now, inside and outside of us, available at a moment’s notice. They teach that we only need to reawaken, to realize that something formless and perfect, something serene, something unchanging and infinite awaits our immediate return through simple awareness. The reunion has already occurred, because the separation never occurred.

The invitation is universal. We’re invited to step into the flow of life that pervades and surrounds us and to rediscover the serenity and unity that are its nature. We are united; we always have been and always will be. We’re invited to live our lives in the midst of that realization.

Tao Te Ching 24

He who tries to shine dims his own light.
He who defines himself can’t know who his really is.
He who has power over others can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures.

Just do your job, then let go.
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We divert our productive energy in our efforts to shine. We divert our productive energy in our efforts to control other people. We divert our productive energy clinging to what we produced yesterday, thereby depleting the energy needed to produce something that will last until tomorrow.

Most if not all of this diverted energy is redirected to our efforts to write a definition of who we are. Our ego demands a definition; it needs reference points to reaffirm its place and importance in the world. Sadly, that definition consists largely of imported reference points taken from an array of external models that we admire or aspire to emulate, or that we allow to influence us.

Once we decide to define ourselves this way, we step away from the opportunity to truly know who we are. That knowledge will only be found deep inside, in the natural grain of our wood, if you will, under all the layers of sealant, paint, varnish, grime and dust that have been applied or allowed to settle over the years.

Let go of trying to shine; let go of controlling others; let go of yesterday’s work and accomplishments; but above all, let go of defining – defining our self and others. Let go of all the covering layers applied over the years and allow the natural grain to be seen and enjoyed. The definition inherent in that grain will shine brighter than anything we think we can create.

Tao Te Ching 23

If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.
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Opening ourselves can be a frightening experience. New insights can challenge our sense of what is good and right and true in the world and that can threaten our carefully constructed, albeit false, sense of security.

Opening ourselves to loss is more than frightening. We exert a tremendous amount of energy in resisting a loss. The bigger the loss, the more we resist it. It’s hard work to accept a loss, but it’s even harder work to not accept that loss.

By opening our defenses and letting that loss “sink in”, by actually feeling rather than resisting or repressing the pain, we’re able to dissipate that pain over a much larger, open space rather than keeping it contained in a closed and deeply embedded place.

It’s like releasing smoke from a bottle. Outside the bottle is a much, much bigger container than inside the bottle. Natural dissipation brings natural relief from grief.

Many of us have closed ourselves off to the way that life naturally flows around us, on the “outside”. By opening ourselves, we allow that natural flow back inside our “bottle” and allow that flow to clear the stagnant air trapped inside. We relearn how to trust natural responses and with that trust we regain the insight that all things are the only way they can be at that moment.

We realize that accepting the present moment completely is the only real choice we have. All other choices are smoke in a bottle.

Tao Te Ching 22 (Teaching 2)

Because the Master doesn’t display himself, people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove, people can trust his words.
Because he doesn’t know who he is, people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no goal in life, everything he does succeeds.
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The self that we’re inclined to display is a densely constructed ego that blocks the natural light that resides in each of us. It also prevents the absorption of light from outside our sense of self. Removing that filter is the meaning of enlightenment.

In doing so, we in effect lose the sense of self – we don’t know who we are, so to speak. With that filter removed, others can see themselves in us because they’re seeing through to the unifying commonality that underlies us all. We’re not just more alike than we are different; we’re all alike but just pretending to be different, because that’s what the ego requires us to do.

The need to prove ourselves right, or the need to prove anything for that matter, arises in the context of our ego. Once that obscuration is removed then, and only then, can someone else trust us. Only then can someone else trust that we’re acting other than in our best interest. Once we stop trying to prove this or that, then others can rely on the love and compassion we profess.

It’s hard for most westerners to picture a life that isn’t based on moving from one goal to another. We define success through the fulfillment of our goals and expectations. Of course, that’s simultaneously how we define failure and dissatisfaction. Having goals per se isn’t really the problem; it’s the ego-based attachment to them and the attendant self-judgment that creates the suffering.

Letting go of our ever-shifting expectations moves us away from the ever-present dissatisfaction that comes from a life build on sand.

Tao Te Ching 22 (Teaching 1)

If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.
If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
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As mentioned in the introduction on September 1, the Tao Te Ching is filled with paradox, but that apparent contradiction is filled with wisdom. In it we learn that all dualistic concepts, and we employ hundreds if not thousands of them, contain their opposing sides.

If you accept one side, you get the other side. If you seek one side, you will find it in or through the other side. If you reject one side, then you reject the other side. If you want to avoid one side, then you must avoid the other side.

Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Wisdom, it seems, tends to be ironic.

Much of our suffering in life comes in the tossing and turning from one conceptual side to the other. That which makes us happy has the equal capacity to make us sad. Whatever has the ability to lift us up also has the ability to bring us down. We’re told at an early age that we must accept the good with the bad in life. That’s true, but only if we insist on thinking in terms of good and bad.

We have one other choice, and that is, paradoxically, to make no choice – to move beyond dualistic thinking and to realize that reality is not conceptual. Reality is what it is, here and now. Once we stop slapping our beloved “either / or” and “this / that” labels on people, places and things, then the reality of those people, places and things reveals itself.

If we want to be full of real life, then the Tao invites us to empty ourselves of our conceptual life.

Tao Te Ching 21

The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao; that is what gives her radiance.

The Tao is ungraspable. How can her mind be at one with it? Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.

The Tao is dark and unfathomable. How can it make her radiant? Because she lets it.
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By now one of the central themes in the Tao Te Ching is apparent. It invites us to find peace through no longer clinging to our cherished ideas. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with thinking or with the ideas and concepts that arise from our thinking. The problems come when we cling to them, when we attach ourselves and our identity to them.

One of the pivotal moments in my life occurred in the midst of three years of marriage counseling with my first wife. While the counseling wasn’t successful for us as a couple, this single moment changed my life. In this particular session, after our counselor had patiently listened to me answer her questions month after month, she finally threw up her hands in exasperation, slumped back in her chair, and declared, “Jon, you are SO into your head!” Her tone was not complimentary.

A light bulb came on in that moment. I knew exactly what she was saying. My head was my fortress. It was where I went to defend myself; it was my safe place. My head had enough ammunition in it to allow me to repel all invaders for a long, long time. I thought I was in a highly secured place – I just failed to realize that it was a prison.

Letting go of our thinking is an amazing step into freedom and fresh air. The sky is clear outside those prison walls. We can make good use of a lot of our thinking and of the thinking of others, if we make sure we keep the doors and windows open and remember to step outside when the usefulness has ended.

At the risk of diminishing the point, perhaps we should give more thought to a little bit of counsel from The Beatles, who may have been truly “speaking words of wisdom” when they encouraged us to, “Let it be, let it be.”

Tao Te Ching 20

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure.
Must you value what others value, avoid what other avoid?
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So much of our thinking isn’t our own – it’s been borrowed, or foisted upon us. Parents, church, school, friends, fellow partisans, the media, employers – all provide the materials from which so much of our thinking is assembled. It’s a wild mosaic, constructed of shards of this and that.

As a result, we too often value the things that others value and devalue what others devalue. We believe that we’re values-driven, when we actually fluctuate between being values-light and value-less – at least in terms of possessing values that we can truly call our own.

In his song, “You’re Only Human”, Billy Joel reminds us:

You're only human; you're allowed to make your share of mistakes;
You're not the only one who's made mistake;
But they're the only thing that you can truly call your own

Ironically, our mistakes are often the last thing that we’re willing to call our own; we’re fond of attributing them to others.

The Tao Te Ching invites us to reclaim a set of values that are eternal and veritable. We do so by quieting our mind’s incessant pursuit of “yes” and “no” and “success” and “failure”, and all the other dualisms that we believe make up our values. As the dirt in the water settles, clarity reemerges and reveals a set of values that have been inherent in our nature since the day we were born.

We rediscover who we are. We rediscover reality. We begin to value life on its terms, rather than in accordance with the terms and conditions of the social contract we’ve entered into with so many others over so many years. In so doing, we find peace and freedom and in that peace and freedom we bless the lives of others in ways that we’ve never done before.

Tao Te Ching 19

Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves.
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It takes time to come to grips with this chapter. It appears to strike at the heart of the American way. Actually, it strikes at the heart of our ego-centered and insecure need to compete and compare and, more importantly, at the heart of our self-righteous need to pass judgment on others.

Over the years, each of us has constructed our personal concepts of holiness, wisdom, morality, justice, industry and profit. Sensing that we are an insufficient foundation for our own proclamations, we attribute our concepts to our God, to our Country, to our Constitution, to our Partisan Truth, to our form of Capitalism, to our American Way of Life. People in other religions, nations, parties, socio-economic models, and ways of life do the same thing. Truth dons a million masks.

We become laws unto ourselves, and then we become the judges who interpret, apply and execute those laws. We become like God – knowing good from evil.

The Book of Genesis teaches us that the original sin of mankind is not found in an inherently sinful nature, but is found in our desire to “be like God, knowing good from evil.” That was the serpent’s temptation in the Garden of Eden – to be like God. God allowed Adam and Eve to eat from every tree in the Garden but one – the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam and Eve that “when you eat of it you will surely die.” How true that is.

Once we take upon ourselves the role of God, the role of judge, and believe that we possess the truth – knowledge about what is and is not holy, wise, moral, just, industrious and profitable – then we are on the road to death in various forms and degrees.

If we lay aside our self-righteousness and trust in creation, in the way of life and in our inherent nature, then we will find happiness and do the right thing. Then we will stop stealing the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then, we will once again have the eternal life that we had on the Seventh Day of creation when God rested and invited us to enjoy life in the Garden.

Tao Te Ching 18

When the Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth.

When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born.
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When we fail to trust – in the inherent power in the way of life, in the inherent nature we share with others – when we fail to remain aware that life can only be lived in the present moment – that’s when we begin to compensate. Unfortunately, most of our attempts at such compensation are little more than expressions of ego and conceit.

We step in to the self-created and illusory void and attempt to fill it with something we call good, pious, clever, knowledgeable, filial or patriotic. In the midst of our insecurity, we grab for handrails, without realizing that those handrails aren’t connected to anything solid.

In each response, we divide people. We become good, while others become bad. We become pious, while others become irreverent. We become clever, while others become dimwitted or naïve. We become knowledgeable, while others become ignorant. We become devoted, while others become fickle or unfaithful. We become patriotic, while others become disloyal.

Each response is a sad attempt to reassert some form of self-importance. We endeavor to feel good about ourselves by trying to manufacture something that can never be made – superiority over others.

Tao Te Ching 17

When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy.
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How many politicians, religious leaders, business executives, neighbors, parents and friends have ignored this simple wisdom? Some of my greatest failings have come from a failure to trust. Conversely, some of my greatest success has come from the simplest acts of trust.

This injunction includes trusting ourselves, trusting our inherent nature, trusting our intuitive sense of what to do or not to do. If we don’t trust ourselves, we make ourselves untrustworthy, and when we make ourselves untrustworthy other people sense that and are likely to feel the same about us.

Trusting ourselves is an expression of self-respect. Trusting others is an expression of love. Subtle governance is an art.

Failing to trust is an expression of fear. We seem to believe that the more control we assert, the more secure we will be. We seem to believe that the more aware people are of our leadership, the more respected we will be. As is so often the case, the Tao Te Ching invites us to turn our beliefs upside down.

Tao Te Ching 16

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.

When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted…dignified.

You can deal with whatever life brings you.
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There is a connection between the mind and the heart, between thinking and feeling. What we feel arises because of what we’re thinking. The Tao Te Ching invites us to return to the peaceful emptiness of non-thinking.

Non-thinking is ever present in each of us. If we can slow down a little we will see that non-thinking lies before and after each thought, and in between each word that we hear in our thoughts. We just need to open up that space and enjoy the peace that lies within it.

These teachings don’t mean that we’re to become thoughtless people. Thoughts happen, including good and productive ones. Rather, we’re being taught to know when we’re thinking, what those thoughts are, and what those thoughts aren’t. We’re being taught that the harm isn’t in the thinking, it’s in holding on to our thoughts as if they are real. We’re being invited to enjoy the freedom that comes in letting go of our thoughts long enough to become aware of what is real.

It’s in this clarity of the mind and peacefulness of the heart that we realize where we come from. We rediscover that clarity and peacefulness are our inherent nature, always awaiting our return – always present before and after the thinking that obscures that nature. In that realization we find tolerance, healthy disinterest, amusement, kindness and dignity.

With those strengths reclaimed, we can, indeed, handle whatever life brings.

Tao Te Ching 15

Do you have the patience to wait till your mind settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and can welcome all things.
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Is there a belief system in the world that doesn’t extol the virtues of patience? Meditation is training in patience. In meditation we’re invited to “just sit” and allow the mind to settle and regain its natural clarity.

Water is water and remains water at all times and all places, no matter what else is put into it, no matter what sediment might be stirred up into it. There’s no such thing as muddy water, only water that has had dirt placed in it by some non-water means. Therefore, the water, pure and clear, is always present and available for those who have the patience to wait for it to arise.

Given the chance, our thoughts and feelings will simply and slowly settle, coming to rest at the bottom of our mind, so to speak. While we may think that our mind has become clear, in fact, it has always been clear. We’ve just allowed the non-water elements to settle down, for the moment.

When our mind is settled and clear then the things that we’re seeking in the mind will arise and become apparent – not by our seeking, but by our non-seeking. Remember the coin – seeking and non-seeking are co-dependent, one arises out of the other. Paradox is ever present.

The practiced master has trained her mind to move beyond seeking, and beyond the expectation that attends seeking, and in so doing she becomes aware of the clarity within her and in that clarity she discovers that all things are present and available to her. She is fulfilled.

Disappointment is a function of expectation. Drop one and the other goes away. The irony is that what is left behind isn’t a lack of fulfillment, as we might expect, but a fulfillment that will never disappoint.

Tao Te Ching 14

Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end.
You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your life.
Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.
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I’ve considered knowledge to be something of great value. Only recently have I become a little more skeptical, as I realize that my so-called knowledge is infested, if you will, with concepts, extrapolations and judgments of my own making. What we “know” is often little more than what we believe or perceive, and what we believe or perceive goes through a host of filters and lenses of varying focal lengths.

To me, the challenge is to move from knowledge to wisdom, which is the careful application of truth to the moment at hand. Wisdom is being in touch with the real world, being grounded and freed from common thinking – the thinking of an ego-centered mind that discriminates between “me” and “you” and “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong”. Judge not, said Jesus.

This wisdom leads to truly being alive. “You can’t know it, but you can be it.” As others have said, we shift from living as a “human doing” to living as a “human being”, which leads us to the essence of wisdom – an earthshaking realization of where we come from.

We come from good stuff. Metaphorically, we are waves arising from an eternally present ocean, an ocean that has an infinite power to create waves of every kind. We are, indeed, created in the image of God, the creative power that is forever the ground of our being.

One of the greatest errors in the thinking of mankind is the notion of original sin, the idea that women and men come into this life in a depraved condition that, absent some external intervention, will lead to damnation in one form or another. That idea is the creation of a priestly class who led institutions that assumed the role of being the vehicles of our salvation. We need no such vehicle driven by no such people bearing no such notions.

As the Apostle Paul said, “continue to work out your salvation…for it is God who works in you.” It is the act of discovering our true nature, which is God working within us, as surely as it is the ocean working within the waves, that leads us out of the “fear and trembling” experienced by those who are not aware of who they are.

We come from good stuff. Good stuff is in us. Those who are aware of their deepest and truest nature are filled with the wisdom that leads them from fear to love to happiness to peace.

Go to the mirror – and find the wisdom to smile.

Tao Te Ching 13 (Teaching 2)

Hope is as hollow as fear.
Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self.

Have faith in the way things are.
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If we boil all our emotions down, we’re left with a residue in the shape of a coin. On one side is love and on the other side is fear – once again, we find opposites sides of the same coin – where there is one, there is the other.

All other emotions, including hope, arise from either love or fear. Of these two, only love is real because love is experienced and expressed in the present moment. Fear is never in the present – fear resides only in the past or the future, neither of which are truly real here and now.

Hope is fear looking forward rather than back over the shoulder. Hope is fear wearing a faint smile rather than a worried grimace. Hope is something grasped by people who fear that what they hope for will not happen.

The only way to be hopeless is to be fearless. The only way to be fearless is to move beyond the need for hope. The fearless have no need for hope.

Tao Te Ching 13 (Teaching 1)

Success is a dangerous as failure.
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.
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Success has to be as dangerous as failure. It can’t be otherwise; they’re opposite sides of the same coin. With one, we get the lurking presence of the other one in equal size and weight.

Similarly, “up” can exist only in the presence of “down”. They, too, are co-dependent. When up and down are experienced on a ladder each is equally dangerous because of the instability inherent in either direction. Whether we’re going up or going down we have only one foot on the ladder at a time.

The Tao invites us to go through life without thinking in terms of success and failure. These are relative and subjective concepts that have no bearing on truth and reality. Truth and reality are free of dualistic concepts.

The Tao invites us to stand firmly on ground where stability and balance are possible. The only solid ground is the present moment – here in space and now in time. Instability is found when we take a one-footed journey down to the past or up to the future. If we feel insecure, then we’ve gone off in one direction or the other.

The Buddha is often depicted sitting in meditation with one hand lightly touching the ground. This simple gesture reminded him, and reminds us, that the purpose of any form of meditation is to bring us back to the ground – the present moment – the only place where peace and contentment can be found.

Life can only be lived in the present, moment after moment. When we wander up or down our ladders of perceived success or failure, we leave life behind, on the solid ground, where it awaits our return.

Tao Te Ching 12

Thoughts weaken the mind. Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.
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Some truth is self evident. Who hasn’t worn themselves to weakness by thinking too much or too long; who hasn’t experienced the withering that comes from desiring someone or something too much or too long.

This doesn’t make thoughts or desires bad. Like the bumper sticker says, these things happen. They come; they go. The weakness and withering come from grasping our thoughts and desires – it’s the mental or emotional attachment to the thought or desire that brings the exhaustion and other forms of suffering. Our problems arise when we don’t allow things to come and go, when we “hang on for dear life.”

Grasping causes us to clinch the heart and close the mind. The Tao invites us to open our mind and heart by allowing things to pass. After all, passing is the nature of all things. Everything is impermanent – that which arises is that which subsides. It’s our attempt to make something permanent, to make something other than what it is, that brings our weakening and withering.

Our inner vision, our nature, which is aligned with the nature of all things, will teach us this truth if we will stop, look and listen to what we’re being taught.

Tao Te Ching 11

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a home, but it is the inner space that makes it livable.

We work with being, but non-being is what we use.
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This is one of the few times when I will quote an entire chapter from the Tao Te Ching. Chapter 11 profoundly demonstrates the value of emptiness and invites us to become more aware of it in and around us. It’s an invitation to insight.

Emptiness is essential; it can be found everywhere. If there were no empty spaces within letters and between words, there would be no communication, no understanding. If there were no empty spaces between the notes we hear, there would be no music, no rhythm, and no harmony.

We describe silence as golden because it is empty of sound. We relish a clear, thus empty sky or the clear breaks between passing clouds. Pain makes us grateful for its absence, a form of emptiness. We eat, and thus live, only because we experience being empty.

Reunion is made joyful only by the separation that opens space and time between us and a loved one, a form of emptiness. Absence, we’re told, makes the heart grow fonder. We know the feeling of joyfulness only because we know we know what it means to be empty of joy.

Being fruitless gives meaning to being fruitful. A glass half full is given meaning only by a glass half empty.

Many of these examples are trite, I know, but they open the path to a significantly more profound meaning of emptiness that the Tao Te Ching will address later. For now, it’s enough to contemplate that non-emptiness exists only because emptiness exists. As with all dualisms, we can’t have one without the other. Therefore, everything that we use and enjoy emerges from and is dependent upon emptiness.

Tao Te Ching 10

Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness?
Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?

Having without possessing, acting with no expectation, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.
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Our thoughts and feelings rise like waves on an ocean. As we ride each wave we think that it’s somehow separate from the ocean. We actually believe that we can “catch a good wave”. We lose sight of the fact that it, like all other waves, arose from the ocean and will quickly return to the “original oneness”.

We all suffer from our wandering minds, what Eastern philosophers call the “monkey mind”. Our thoughts and feelings jump from branch to branch, grabbing this or that vine, swinging from tree to tree. It’s a triple-canopy jungle in there!

Stepping back, letting go, frees us from our wandering and allows us to settle on what we’ve been seeking all along – understanding. Understanding lies outside our mental activity. Stepping back actually moves us forward.

Who hasn’t experienced the sudden insight that comes when we finally step back from all our thinking and simply allow that understanding to emerge? Understanding is something we experience by living life here and now, not something that comes from wandering in thought.

Our disappointment with life lies in our expectations that life should be different than it is at the moment. We believe that life is or at least can be under our control and that we should “take control of our future”. This idea is contrary to the wisdom that encourages us simply to “lead a good life”. Leading without controlling; acting without expecting; having without possessing – the way to a good and peaceful life.

Tao Te Ching 9

Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
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There’s a lot of talk about freedom these days. In the name of freedom, we chase after money and we chase after security. Everyone involved in such a chase believes that their objective lies at the end of the chase. The only thing at the end of that chase is the lie itself.

The most powerful word in these two lines is “unclench”. We can call it stress, anxiety, insecurity, or some other description of the internal tension inherent in chasing after something that we’re never going to get – enough. When do we have enough money, enough security, enough approval – enough of whatever it is that we’re chasing as the means to peace and happiness? If we feel the need to chase after something, then we’ll never have enough of whatever it is – we’ll never unclench.

We should act in a way that naturally gives birth to the approval of other people who are acting in a similar way – without either person caring about getting that approval. That kind of approval flows with a natural resonance, without care or chasing. We should give no thought to seeking the approval of people in some other way. If we do, we surrender our freedom to them; we’re held captive by our need for approval and by their willingness to give it.

Tao Te Ching 8

The supreme good is like water…it is content with the low places that people disdain.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
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We respect people for many reasons but we almost always respect someone who exhibits a sense of peace and contentment, no matter what their station in life may be. It’s only the ego-driven person who believes they find respect through competing. This idea doesn’t make competition bad; it just removes its goodness.

These two lines invite us to draw a contentment connection between “the low places” and simply being yourself. Just as water naturally flows to and nourishes the low places, the “supreme good” naturally flows to and nourishes those who are content with themselves as they are in the present moment.

Comparing ourselves against other people is one of the growing sicknesses of our time. The need to compare drives the competitive addiction to what we perceive to be beauty, wealth and power. Real beauty, wealth and power are found on the other side of that coin.

Tao Te Ching 7

The Tao is infinite. Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself, thus it is present for all things.

The Master is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them.
Because the Master has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.
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One of the recurring themes in the Tao Te Ching is detachment – letting go – and particularly letting go of the self – the ego. The more self-centered we are, the more fearful and dissatisfied we are and the more we suffer. The more we get outside of ourselves – letting go of our overriding sense of self – the more loving and compassionate we are. (Note: I did not say “we become”; I said “we are”.)

Like the bellows discussed a couple of days ago, the more we empty ourselves of our ego, the more capacity we have for fulfillment. It is only the ego that perceives a lack of fulfillment and a constricting dissatisfaction with life as it is. It is the ego that experiences fear. It is the ego that dwells in the past and the future.

The ego perceives a separation between us and “others”. As we detach from the ego we experience the underlying oneness with others, a unity that gives rise to the love and compassion that are inherent in that unity and thus inherent in each of us.

Only in the present moment are we free from the ego; only in the here and now will we find satisfaction and fulfillment. Try letting go – it’s perfectly fulfilling.

Tao Te Ching 6

The Tao is empty…yet inexhaustible.
It is always present within you.
You can use it anyway you want.
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We can only discover what is present within us if we are present within ourselves. What keeps us from being fully present and inexhaustible? It’s our lack of emptiness.

We’re filled with our judgments, opinions, concepts, assessments, ideas and views of the world around us, all of which have arisen in the past and are being projected into the future. Our minds are filled with past troubles and future worries; too often we’re focused on our fears – fears based on what we believe has happened to us and on what we believe may happen to us.

The inexhaustible power of “the way of life” is available to whoever makes the choice to return to the present within them.

The next time that you’re suffering or feeling dissatisfied, let go of the thoughts occupying your mind. The thoughts will still arise, but you can choose to let them come and go; you can choose not to grab hold of them. Instead, you can return entirely to the here and now and experience what is happening in the reality of the present.

Get back in touch with your breathing and the beat of your heart; get fully connected to your sitting, standing, walking or whatever else you’re doing at the moment. Touch the ground, literally and figuratively.

Tao Te Ching 5

The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable.
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Jesus taught that God “causes his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.” Similarly, he told us not to judge others. What meaning can that injunction have if it doesn’t mean that we’re not to judge the good and the evil we believe we see in others?

The Tao, like God, gives birth, in a manner of speaking, to all things. All things come from it and all things return to it. When we pass judgment on people and things we give birth to the concepts of good and evil. That which I call good, someone else calls evil. That which I call evil, someone else calls good. There is only a child’s handful of things that all of us call good or evil. Perhaps that handful is all we need to remember.

In the second line above, the Tao Te Ching introduces us to its paradoxical nature and to the Eastern concept of emptiness. This isn’t emptiness as we think of it – rather, it’s a paradoxical emptiness, one that contains everything.

In this example, if a bellows were not empty, it would be of no use. As we expand a bellows we expand its capacity for emptiness and in so doing we increase its capability. The Tao invites us to expand our capacity and capability in similar manner.

One of the things we need to “empty” ourselves of is our judgment of the good and evil we believe we see in others. Those judgments, along with myriad other concepts, assessments, opinions, ideas and views, fill our “bellows”, leaving no space for it to function as intended. To the extent that we “empty” ourselves, we will increase our clarity, capacity and capability.

Tao Te Ching 4

The Tao is like a well: used but never used up…filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
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It is difficult to trust in life the way it is in the present moment. In the grip of dissatisfaction, we continually grasp for a life that is other than “the way it is”. The hidden will rarely appear present to those who are dissatisfied with the present.

If we can stay in the present moment rather than focusing on and fearing the past or the future, then we will discover the eternal presence of a heretofore hidden well of infinite capacity. The flow of “the way of life” is powerful and it offers that power to anyone who will stay centered in that flow rather than grabbing for the walls of the well, past and future.

Life is an infinite succession of present moments each of which is filled with the possibility of satisfaction. When we are truly present here and now we discover that life is, indeed, the way it is and that life the way it is – is O.K. Frankly, it has to be O.K. because life can’t be anything other than the way it is at this moment.

Neither can we be anything other than the way we are at this moment. If we desire to be something different in the future, then we have to change the way we are right now. Life is only live here and now.

Tao Te Ching 3

If you over-esteem great men, people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal.
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This is another manifestation of dualistic thinking. Once we create “powerful” people, then at the same moment we create “powerless” people. We can’t have one without the other.

There are hundreds of examples of our society over-esteeming “great” men and women – in politics, religion, sports, big business, literature, education, music and the arts, and the entertainment industry. When we look at the highly esteemed and we experience envy, coveting, or merely a subtle desire to be more like them, and thus less like ourselves, we experience the absence of power.

We can only be healthy and stable, whether as a country, a society, a community, a married couple, or a family, when power is balanced.

Once we declare that the possession of property is not only “good” and “valuable” but is also a primary source of power, then at the same moment the absence of possessions becomes “bad” and those who don’t possess property become “valueless” and “powerless”. At the same moment, the inherent need for balance in the universe results in “bad” people stealing, in one form or another, in order to obtain power and reestablish balance. The greater the number of dispossessed and “powerless” people then the greater the number of people who steal in order to dispossess someone else.

We purport to cherish equality in America but, given our inclination to over-esteem and overvalue, too often we settle for the illusion of equality.

Tao Te Ching 2

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
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We are trapped in dualistic thinking. We have divided and categorized people and things on the basis of this conventional thinking. In so doing, we fail to realize that one side of the dualism cannot exist without the other side. If you have one, then you have the other.

Picture holding a coin. The “other side” of the coin is never seen; we see only the side that’s facing us. We’re incapable of seeing both sides at the same time. But, just because we can’t see the “other side” doesn’t mean that the “other side” isn’t there. If we turn the coin, we see the “other side” – but in so doing, we lose sight of the “other side” that we saw just a moment before.

For example, that which we call bad also brings good; that which we call good also brings bad. We can only rid ourselves of the bad by ridding ourselves of the good that accompanies it, because good is on the backside of bad.

Danny’s death is the worst experience my wife and I have endured – the death of a child is as “bad” as it gets. With it, however, came an explosion of “good” in the form of personal growth and altered perspective that has changed how we experience almost everything in the world around us. We are better people now, by far, than we were on March 15, 2002.

We have another choice – we can rid ourselves of the self-created ideas of “good” and “bad” and realize that something simply is what it is and that in reality, as opposed to in the conceptual world that we’ve constructed in our mind, our categorizing of some thing neither adds to nor detracts from what that thing is. The death of a child is the death of a child. We shouldn’t try to add to or detract from what is, because it’s a futile effort that creates nothing more than the illusion of truth.

If the truth will set us free, then we shouldn’t settle for truths that are relative, conventional or provisional in nature. We should seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the whole truth.

Tao Te Ching 1

The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
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At the moment of birth each of us is given a name. As soon as we become aware of that name we begin to believe that we’re different than others. Naming and labeling divide one from another; they separate people and things; they make each person and thing particular, which is to say peculiar.

But with each name or label we not only create separation between people and things, we create separation between us and reality. Names and labels are by their nature limiting and to one degree or another always unreal.

There’s a certain degree of arrogance in presuming to give someone a name or something a label. Wherever there is arrogance there is also ignorance. The more we use names and labels, the more limited we make the world around us, and thus the more ignorant we become about the reality of that world.

Names and labels also give birth to confusion because each name or label means something different in each person’s mind. What I think of when I say your name is not the same thing that you think of when you say your name, and vice versa. Which thought is real? Neither thought is real, because each is about a name or a label that at best reflects conventional or relative truth. Names and labels are provisional, mere conventions.

We should be very careful about how we name and label people and things. For example, “enemy” and “evil” are names and labels that are used in countless ways by countless people to separate the relatively “good” from the relatively “bad”, which is relatively true at best and relatively false as often as not.

Anyone interested in absolute truth as opposed to relative truth should be very careful when speaking of or listening to names and labels. When God was asked to reveal his name on Mount Horeb, he declined. Instead, he referred to himself as “I AM WHO I AM.” Indeed he is; as are we; as are all other people to whom we give names; as are all other created things to which we give labels.

The Way of Life

On Wednesday, May 9th, I couldn’t write any more. I had grown tired of my anger. My postings became increasingly focused on the insanity in Iraq and the inevitability that nothing much was going to change there until January 2009 when, hopefully, the country will turn to a different kind of leadership with a radically different vision of how to combat terrorism in the world.

So the postings stopped. A part of me wanted to shift to a different focus but I was unable to ignore the war and its damaging impacts on America, Iraq, the Middle East and the world. I could not get beyond the view that my president and his advisors were actually fostering rather than fighting terrorism.

Enough of that, at least in that form. I want to do something different with these pages for a while.

For the last two to three months whenever I’ve taken my evening walk alone I have listened to a reading of the Tao Te Ching, as translated and read by Stephen Mitchell (http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/). Mitchell’s bio in his translation of the Tao Te Ching says he was “educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice.” I love that line.

I intend to lift a quote from each of the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching (each chapter is less than a page long) and add a short commentary. If all goes well, that will be what I write about for the next 100 days or so. After that, we’ll see.

The authorship of the Tao Te Ching is attributed to Lao-tzu, who we’re told may have been a contemporary of Confucius (551 – 479 BCE) and may have been a library archivist in one of the small kingdoms of the day. Whoever penned it, the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching has reverberated throughout the world for more than 2,500 years. That alone makes it worth reading. Its content makes it worth studying.

The Tao Te Ching speaks about the Tao, something that does not lend itself to definition. Chapter 1 tells us, “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” Often translated as “the Way,” to me the Tao refers to “the way of life”; the way in which and through which all of life unfolds without regard to what we do or don’t do. It is the source, the immutable, the reality, the river and the energy of life. It has also been aptly described as “the eternal present”.

Those of us who live in accord with “the way of life” - those of us who live in the present moment rather than in the past or the future; those of us who realize that reality lies beyond our concepts, judgments, opinions, ideas and views - are freed from the suffering that comes from living contrary to the “the way of life”.

The Tao Te Ching is about freedom. We’re told that the war in Iraq is about freedom and that “the enemy hates us for our freedom.” The Tao Te Ching teaches us that no one at war with an enemy is free and that no one who hates is free and that no one who fears is free. It’s time for enemies everywhere, the hateful and the fearful, to find the freedom that comes with living here and now in accord with the way of life. It's certainly time for me to do so.